<p>So, when I moved into my apartment this year, some neighbors moving out down the hall offered me a very nice leather couch they didn’t want. Although I got it for everyone to use in our apartment, I figured, because it had been offered to ME, and MY boyfriend moved it in for us, that I would have dibs on keeping it at the end of the year; however, when I brought this up, my roommates all seemed to think they wanted to keep it, and that I shouldn’t get the couch. Firstly, we can’t split up the couch, so we need to decide on just one person keeping it. I feel everyone wants the couch, but I have a bit of an advantage because I got it for us; I also have the best means of transporting it in terms of manpower, vehicles, distance, etc. I am subleasing my room for the summer, and apparently need to leave the couch here for them until the lease is up, but I’m afraid one of them will just take it before I get back there. How can I convince my roommates I should get the couch, and avoid having to just take it without their cooperation, or worse, have one of them take it before me? They don’t seem to want to listen to reason…</p>
<p>You don’t. Call up your boyfriend and have him help you move it. </p>
<p>Ethically, you have a right to keep it, and legally, there’s nothing any of them can do to you. Even if they were dumb enough to call the police, they’d be told it’s a civil matter. Then, in the unlikely chance they’re dumb enough to try to take you to small claims court over it, a judge is probably most likely to side with you only because you have the best claim to it. Just don’t worry about it.</p>
<p>He who procured the couch and moved the couch gets to keep the couch! :)</p>
<p>Just take it. You got it, you (or your bf) moved it. It’s yours.</p>
<p>How can you even argue against the fact that you’re the one that got it?</p>
<p>honestly from your writing style you seem really self-centered. I would leave the couch for your roommates and after the summer, you can work something out.</p>
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<p>Why? It’s her couch. It isn’t self-centered to not feel compelled to give other people your things, especially when they’re being entitled for no good reason about it. That just establishes you as someone who’s easily manipulated. It’s one thing to be generous to people, but to think that someone has to is childish. If she does it now, after they started acting like entitled brats about it, all she’s going to do is enable them and establish herself as someone to be manipulated. </p>
<p>Besides, there’s no guarantee the couch will be there after she makes plans to come back, especially with their attitude. If they think they have a right to it for now, why wouldn’t they think they have a right to it after using it for several months when she’s gone?</p>
<p>Easy. Borrow a chainsaw. Get everyone with a claim together. Get a non-claimant to start the chainsaw & proceed to divide it equally. The person who insists on giving up his or her portion in order to preserve the couch should get the couch since the others were willing to let it be destroyed & become useless.</p>
<p>P.S. If nobody is willing to sacrifice their claim in order to preserve the couch, then it wasn’t worth lost friendships.</p>
<p>Give them the reasons you posted here, and take the couch. Easy Peazy!</p>
<p>It’s yours. Take it. </p>
<p>Axelrod - hahaha</p>
<p>its not as though she received the couch as a personal favor from her friends. If her other roommate had been there at that time, the couch would have been given to her. I view the gift as a collective one.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. She might have talked to the neighbor the most and it otherwise could have gone to one of that neighbor’s friends. She said it was offered to her, and I doubt they’d just leave it in the hallway or hand it to whatever random neighbors if it was in good condition and leather. Besides, she moved it in.</p>
<p>Oh come on, you can just get the couch after summer. Don’t make your roommates have to find a new couch if they’re going to be living there just for a few more months. Just compromise with them: you get the couch after summer.</p>
<p>It’s not like you paid for the couch with your own money. It was given to you by a neighbor who seems like s/he was giving it away for apartment use, not for your personal use.</p>
<p>If you did pay for it, it would be a different story.</p>